The Sushi-Afro-Whiteboy Mix

Chapter 3's intriguing layers seemed to clearly spell out the authors viewpoint towards racial bias. Before approaching the passage within the reading that I will elucidate upon, I would like to discuss a statement made on pg. 101.

While the quotes that I will reference aren't specifically verbalized by Nakamura, they seem to build upon her undertone.

"Whiteness thus spreads in a manner that exemplifies a much-favored paradigm of e-business in the nineties: viral marketing. Steven Shaviro defines it as follows: "The message propagates itself by massive self-replication as it passes from person to person in the manner of an epidemic contagion."

It seems paradoxical that the message of "Whiteness" would be propagated from person to person as not all of us share the same racial or ethnic identities.

Am I understanding Nakamura correctly??....Is she conveying that "Whiteness" is an issue. Throughout chapter, Nakamura contextualizes "Whiteness" as a source of power and identity, seemingly taking an antagonistic approach towards an ethnicity that is not her own.

Interestingly, one thing that she doesn't relay in her message (at least so far) is the vast differentiation of cultural and ethnic behaviors within the "White" race and how they contrast in many aspects to her asserted notions within the chapter. Nakamura isn't alone when she utilizes the "White" race card though. It would be interesting to see an author parse the dogmatic behavior of other authors who ironically write about race and continually utilize "White" as a stereotypical Anglo American term.

Ok...Onto the assignment...I'm deviating a bit from the movie portion and focusing more on the Apple advertisements.

On pg. 109-110 Nakamura summarizes Apple's position in marketing to an audience (demographically - a younger audience at that) in a somewhat racially biased, yet culturally intuitive manner. She addresses how Apple has capitalized on what Donnell Alexander (pg. 112; bottom of page) has described as "Cool". Nakamura's deconstruction of Apple's scheme is well thought out. She is able to verbalize what Apple is doing visually and shows us how Apple is using racial hierarchy to affirm parts of their message while tangentially maintaining some sort of racial neutrality. She is also quick to point out the message of "I" in Apple's ruse. The word "I" appears attractive to a younger demographic because they are constantly in search of what something can do for them. Not only does Apple give them something that is cool and is theirs, but appeals to them through the realm of interconnectivity and rapid change.

Quite frankly, despite Nakamura's deconstruction of Apple's marketing ploy, I would have to say that Apple is doing a bang up job in their marketing dept. They have truly hit the nail on the head when tying to convey their "message" to potential consumers.

This commercial, while not hiding the relative racial identities, epitomizes the Apple I-Pod ad that Nakamura describes:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6mOEU87SBTU&feature=player_embedded

In the Coke ad we start by seeing the form of a "beautiful" white woman gracing us with her voice. She is the starting point of power in the commercial as she is the only one singing out of the huge chorus at the beginning. After her intro we see "everyone else" join in the chorus. The relayed message and visual indicators of racial difference are apparent and somewhat transparent unlike the Apple commercial, however the commercial does signify how "even back when" companies were trying to unify people around their prospective products utilizing the techniques Nakamura describes.

Although this next video isn't related to what I was describing above, it definitely fits into our reading and race discussions. While this commercial doesn't have the specific "coolness" factor built into it like Apple's I-Pod commercial and doesn't try to subliminally coherse you, it is definitely a satirical comment towards Nakamura's work.

http://www.break.com/holy-taco/the-red-house-furniture-commercial.html